Ralph was not ill-pleased to see the Bishop of Bayeux come forward, for the cruelties he had perpetrated while sharing the vice-regency of England with William Fitzosbern had won him the hatred of the Saxons, and the Normans regarded him with jealousy and distrust; so that of all William's leaders he was least likely to win Ralph's followers to his side by personal influence.
Yet the warlike bishop was well fitted to grace the saddle of a knight. Tall, robust, and handsome, in the prime of youthful manhood, he looked indeed a noble cavalier, and any who saw him might well deem that the feats by which he had made himself famous at Hastings might be eclipsed by his prowess on the field before him.
His eyes sparkled with the excitement of the coming struggle, and his upright and muscular form was armed cap-à-pie in all the trappings of knightly harness. Only in one particular did his equipment differ from that of the warriors around him. He bore neither lance nor sword, but only, hanging from his saddle-bow, a huge mace with iron spikes, a weapon more deadly than either, be it said, though less like to spill blood; by this subterfuge professing to obey the law of the Church which forbade his order to shed blood.
He now came as a messenger of peace—on conditions. But what conditions!
'Noble barons and knights,' he shouted, 'here present in contumacious assembly! In the name of our king-lord, William of Normandy, supreme sovereign of these realms, by the will of the sainted Eadward the Confessor, and the election of the Witanagemót'—('No!' thundered some of the Anglo-Saxons who followed Ralph de Guader)—'By the will of the sainted Eadward the Confessor, and the election of the Witanagemót!' repeated the bishop in still louder tones, 'we, his representatives, do here demand of you that ye deliver up the body of the vile and audacious traitor, Ralph de Guader, sometime Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk, but now under attainder for high treason; and the persons of his Breton followers, here arranged in blank rebellion against their liege lord and sovereign, William the Norman, upon which deliverance and your immediate return to allegiance, your past misdeeds will receive free pardon, be ye Norman or Saxon.'
Ralph de Guader's dark visage was convulsed with passion when he heard himself and his countrymen thus singled out and excepted from all hope of pardon; and he vowed within his throat that if his Norman and Saxon vassals and allies accepted the terms, himself and his bold Bretons would forthwith turn upon them, and so entreat them that few should live to profit by their delinquency.
But the doubt was short-lived. Ralph was a brave leader and a generous master, and, moreover, well skilled in raising the ambitions of such as had embarked in his boat. A shout of derision hailed the bishop's harangue before the herald had time to repeat it formally, rising first from a dozen or so of lusty throats in Ralph's near neighbourhood, and spreading afterwards through the whole host. Ralph himself flung back the answer.
'Tell your base-born usurper,' he shouted, 'that the Normans have tired of his ingratitude, and deem his offers of pardon as little like to be fulfilled, as the fair promises of lands and honours he made them before Hastings. Tell him that the Saxons have yet to avenge Harold Godwinsson, and win back their broad acres, and that the Bretons are not yet within the power of the murderer of Count Alain and Count Conan.'
'It is well!' replied the bishop, who, notwithstanding the elasticity of his ecclesiastical conscience, preferred honest fighting to the chopping off the hands, ears, and noses of prisoners which must needs have followed the acceptance of his terms. 'After such a message, we need have no compunction in striking the first blow.'
The day was overcast, and heavy masses of grey cloud were scudding up from the south-west, shedding blinding gushes of rain at intervals, and a gusty, whistling wind swept the open heath. As Bishop Odo withdrew to the ranks of the king's men, a wilder whistle shrilled through the air, and sharp cries of pain startled the larks and the whin-chats from their nests among the gorse.